The inventive subject matter relates generally to the art of mobile and/or wireless telecommunications. Particular but not exclusive relevance is found in connection with Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless networks, the standards of which have been developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Accordingly, the present specification makes specific reference thereto. It is to be appreciated however that aspects of the present inventive subject matter are also equally amenable to other like applications and/or network environments.
LTE and/or other broadband and/or Internet Protocol (IP) wireless networks are used at times to transmit real time voice, audio, video and/or other like real time traffic packets. For example, VoLTE (Voice over LTE) represents real time voice packet transmission over an LTE wireless network. However, one problem with carrying real time traffic packets over an LTE network is the relatively large User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) header overhead. For example, in such cases, a typical real time traffic packet may have: an IP header of 20 octets for IP version 4 (IPv4) or 40 octets for IP version 6 (IPv6); a UDP header of 8 octets (without a checksum) or 10 (with a checksum); and a Real-time Transfer Protocol (RTP) header of 12 octets. Accordingly, the total header is between 40 and 42 octets for IPv4 and between 60 and 62 for IPv6.
By comparison, the payload size (say for real time voice packets) depends on the speech coding and frame size being used, but it may be as low as 15 to 20 octets. This means the header can account for almost 50% to 67% overhead depending on the particular circumstances. The overhead is given by the payload size divided by the total header size. For example, assuming a 20 octet payload using IPv4 with no UDP checksum, the header overhead is 50%.
In telecommunications networks, it is generally desirable to conserve bandwidth, and in particular, in an LTE wireless network the air interface bandwidth can be a relatively costly resource. Accordingly, it can be desirable to reduce or eliminate header overhead where possible.